New Year, New Beginnings

2013 was a year we were happy to say goodbye!  It was a long hard year with lots of challenges.  We are in a completely different place then we were a year ago.  We are not tied down to our house-we are able to meet new friends-we are able to socialize with old friends-and most importantly we are becoming "normal" every day!  So 2014 is welcomed.  We plan to be more social this year and get out more!  Mark and I plan to run our first half marathon in April.  We (I) plan to worry less and enjoy the 5 of us more.

Our New Years festivities started off with my brother and his family stopping by.  We didn't get to see them on Christmas so we celebrated with them after Christmas.  It was a fun night of playing games and catching up.  Never once did I think, "wow there are 6 kids in this house".  They are getting older and are completely independent while playing together!

 

After they left I spent the next day cooking all day!  It was a special time with my friend Lindsey who was getting ready to have her baby (which she did January 6th).  Then thanks to Nanny and Papa H. we got enjoyed a night out with our other good friends Celine and Mike, who are also having a baby!  It's so exciting to be on the other end of my friends having babies-another great thing about this year.  2014 will welcome two babies that will be a part of our lives forever!

 

On Monday afternoon we packed the kids up for a road trip to visit the Troness family in Iowa City.  Tara is my best friend from high school and we decided New Years together would be a great idea.  We arrived during a snow storm, but got there in time to spend the night visiting, playing, and eating together.

 

Of course Mack found the trains.  This kids is obsessed with trains!

 

On New Year's eve day we took the kids to this really cool children's museum.  I wish we had something like this.  There were rooms and rooms of fun things for kids to do.  At noon they dropped a huge amount of balloons. 

 When all the kids woke up we started to party!  Tara and I blew up a lot of balloons and filled the house.  Then we got out hats, noise makers, and much more.  The kids had fun!  They even toasted each other with sparkling grape juice.  It's fun celebrating with them!

 We had so much food!  Too much food!

 Of course they thought it was a good idea to buy friend chicken...not such a good idea:)

 Cheers!

They are still toasting to a Happy New Year!  Then the adults made it to midnight...not too exciting, but it didn't matter because we did it together.  The trip was well worth the time to be with friends (something we couldn't do all year because of Mack).  The next morning we had to leave in a hurry because another snow storm was hitting-that was a bummer to pack up fast and leave.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!  Cheers to 2013